Last week Charlie and I put our heads together to improve a sentence in one of his drafts. He was writing about protecting landscape plants from cold damage:

What the frost blanket, old bed sheet, or cardboard box accomplishes is to slow down the passage of heat stored in the ground and to hold it around the plant.

The word is tells you that this is a static sentence. Nothing is moving or changing. The frost blanket (or old bed sheet or cardboard box) exists, and that’s all.

Is (and are, was, were, and will be) are useful words, of course. Every writer (including me!) uses them all the time. But professional writers always take a moment to see if a more interesting word is called for.

In today’s sentence, we got rid of is altogether. Here’s the revised sentence:

The frost blanket, old bed sheet, or cardboard box slows down the passage of heat stored in the ground, holding it around the plant.  BETTER

It’s a more active sentence now. And the revision is six words shorter – another step towards greater readability.

An old bed sheet protects a tender plant from freeze damage.